Tech —

Hands-on with Voxer: more than just another iOS, Android messaging app

Voxer's walkie-talkie function is both useful and fun.

There's no shortage of messaging apps that take advantage of your smartphone's data plan. Apple's iMessage platform allows the instant exchange of messages, images, and video (albeit to other supported Apple devices). Google uses Google Voice for text messages, but it doesn't have a first-party utility for freely exchanging media. Samsung's cross-platform app ChatON seems to fill that void for Android. And while you can send a plethora of multimedia types using ChatON, Voxer's simpler implementation seems to be ruling the roost. Voxer is an ad-free, cross-platform messaging app for iOS and Android. Playing the role of the modern-day walkie-talkie, it allows snippets of audio, text, and images to be sent surprisingly easily.

Voxer's user interface isn't shooting for any design awards, but to its credit, it is quite easy to use. The Talk button is prominently displayed and takes visual precedence over the image and text sharing buttons. At best, it looks like a free app made in a weekend. At worst, it looks like a port of a free Android app made by a volunteer design committee. The most interesting design choice is the use of a live waveform that reacts to your voice when speaking. Interface snobs will no doubt thumb their noses at its metallic grill and Pac-Man-inspired playback buttons.

Deleting these conversations was the worst part of my experience.

Patrick Austin

While setup is extremely simple, a potential privacy headache awaits you before you even finish signing up. After you enter your username and password, the app requires your phone number. According to Voxer's FAQ section, "We only ask for your phone number to help us better match you with your friends! At no time do we ever share your phone number or e-mail with other users and we will not call or spam you."

You can avoid this by using your Facebook information instead. When logging in, the app once again asks you to disclose even more information: your contact list. If you're comfortable with letting it see your address book, Voxer will automatically populate itself with a list of friends using the app. If not, you'll have to search for your friends manually or dig through your contact list yourself. You can invite friends who aren't using the service via SMS or e-mail. With an optional "Privacy Mode," you can choose to be found only by your e-mail address.

After setup was complete, I exited the app and was greeted with an unwelcome surprise: a badge indicating 25 notifications. It seems that every person added to your list in Voxer sends you an automated response stating that they are using the app, as if their existence within the app itself didn’t already indicate that. As you could imagine, swiping and deleting all 25 "active" conversations was an annoyance.

During a normal day of use, I didn't notice many problems with the app itself. That being said, it still has a few bugs in it. Photos take a bit of time to send and receive, and occasionally Voxer crashed during recording. These errors were few, but noticeable enough to get a groan out of me during a particularly long and ultimately lost voice recording. Much like messaging clients with a "currently typing" indicator, Voxer livestreams voice messages if you want to listen as they happen. When in a conversation with a group of your contacts, the voice messages play one after another. Useful if you missed the conversation, but annoying when you simply want to hear a single clip. Luckily you can stop playback, skip messages, or fast forward through long-winded ones, much like Apple's fast-forward feature when listening to books or podcasts.

My first voice clip crashed the app. My second was more successful.

Patrick Austin

The voice quality itself was a little disappointing. While much better than the Nextel phones of old, it still leaves much to be desired. Geotagging photos and texts is a nice feature that can be toggled on and off. Unfortunately, the photo itself is cropped to a 640x640 square. With its lack of filters, it isn't ideal for sharing your most artistic photos, but it is useful for getting a picture of your meatball marinara sandwich to your friends. And then a voice clip of you eating it.

I found Voxer's walkie-talkie function most useful when organizing gatherings with groups of friends. Dictating plans and events to others with accompanying addresses and photos makes planning a lunch together easier than hoping everyone received and responded to their Facebook event invitation. One easter egg I was surprised to discover was Voxer's gift of offline queued messaging. On a trip through New York's subway system, I lost service during a voice recording. When I arrived at a station with passable reception, the message was automatically sent and the app was updated with information I'd missed during my time underground. That's a definite boon for city dwellers and those in areas with spotty reception.

All things considered, I struggled to find a reason besides subterranean communication to keep up with yet another messaging platform. "I already have Facebook and Twitter," I'd push-to-talk to my friends. "Why do I need another one?" But by the end of the day, I understood the hook. Voxer's voice sharing was simply fun. Reading everyone's funny quips and status updates has its place, but hearing the voices of your group of friends whenever you wanted was something that is missing from today's roster of social networks. It felt like a game of modern-day Telephone, but with more pictures of breakfast burritos instead of aluminum cans. Voxer's strengths may lie not in its everyday use, but in its ability to bring friends closer together than other messaging apps. As with everything social, it only works when the ones you want to talk to are using it. But with Voxer's en masse adoption, you may be surprised when you find out you're the only one who isn't on it.